WMD allegations make a comeback

According to my morning paper an Associated Press article written by Charles J Hanley indicates that 50 percent of the American people now believe that there are WMD in Iraq. This is up from 35 percent one year ago.

The free Republic and other rightwingers including talk radio are taking this to a totally bizarre extreme and apparently people are believing it.

Herd instinct is exactly the problem being discussed here, whole herds of people being driven to irrational fears over nonexistent weapons.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I was under the impression that weapons were found in Iraq, but this information was kept quiet for political reasons, I.E. the original sources of the weapons (or the materls and chemicals used in them) can be traced back to "ally" nations?

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I was under the impression that weapons were found in Iraq, but this information was kept quiet for political reasons, I.E. the original sources of the weapons (or the materls and chemicals used in them) can be traced back to "ally" nations?

There are herds pushing that impression on people, but not with any reasonable basis for the claim.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I was under the impression that weapons were found in Iraq, but this information was kept quiet for political reasons, I.E. the original sources of the weapons (or the materls and chemicals used in them) can be traced back to "ally" nations?

My God you fell for the group think.

Today, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) held a press conference and announced “we have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” Santorum and Hoekstra are hyping a document that describes degraded, pre-1991 munitions that were already acknowledged by the White House’s Iraq Survey Group and dismissed.

Whatever, I am not particurally interested in arguing the finer points of the Iraq war, my simple point is just that polls in their current form (ESPECIALLY when coming from the A.P.) are B.S. I'm sure there are Iraq war threads a mile long with many arguments laid out, I don't feel the need to re-invent the wheel in this respect, because in the end people need to make up their own mind, no one should do it for them... Unfortunately factual data is very lacking in this arena, and it is my suspicion that any real data that exists is either classified, or drowned out by raging opinion.

As for polling- my suspicion is that people's opinions are close to a standard distribution on any given sontroversial subject, and the "limits" of where the poll is taken dictate the results. Most of the time, a controversial issue such as this end up 50-50. Phrasing, available questions, and context have too large an effect on a poll's answers to make it even marginally effective.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I was under the impression that weapons were found in Iraq, but this information was kept quiet for political reasons, I.E. the original sources of the weapons (or the materls and chemicals used in them) can be traced back to "ally" nations?

Here's an assignment for you. You read it and point out where I'm "debunked with facts." Then you can play with the goalposts and retreat to the presently safe claim that "there is no evidence of an active, viable Iraqi chemical or biological arsenal." Of course, that wasn't the question asked on the poll, now was it?

All of the Iraq's chemical weapons were filled with chemicals with the purchase made possible by the USA. That was common knowledge a long time ago.

Um, where did you get that idea?

On the point about the ISG addressing the chemical munitions shells uncovered in Iraq.

ISG said:

Disposition of CW Munitions Post-1991

ISG expended considerable time and effort investigating longstanding Iraqi assertions about the fate of CW munitions known to have been in Baghdad’s possession during the Gulf war. We believe the vast majority of these munitions were destroyed, but questions remain concerning hundreds of CW munitions.

Since May 2004, ISG has recovered dozens of additional chemical munitions, including artillery rounds, rockets and a binary Sarin artillery projectile (see Figure 5). In each case, the recovered munitions appear to have been part of the pre-1991 Gulf war stocks, but we can neither determine if the munitions were declared to the UN or if, as required by the UN SCR 687, Iraq attempted to destroy them. (See Annex F.)

* The most significant recovered munitions was a 152mm binary Sarin artillery projectile which insurgents had attempted to use as an improvised explosive device.
* ISG has also recovered 155mm chemical rounds and 122mm artillery rockets which we judge came from abandoned Regime stocks.

The 1991 Decision To Destroy Undeclared Weapons

An IAEA inspection led by Dr. David Kay in late June 1991 triggered Iraq’s decision to unilaterally destroy the undeclared weapons that had been concealed from the UN, according to multiple senior Iraqi officials. Dr. Kay’s inspection team was blocked from sites in Abu Ghurayb and Fallujah. The Iraqis fired warning shots over the inspectors’ heads, but Dr. Kay and his group brought back video tapes and photos that indicated Iraq was hiding undeclared uranium enrichment equipment from the inspectors.

* Dr. Kay’s inspection and the international uproar surrounding it caused consternation and a measure of panic in the Regime’s leadership, particularly Husayn Kamil, and Saddam appointed a high-level committee headed by Deputy Prime Minister Tariq ‘Aziz to deal with inspection matters, according to multiple sources.
* A senior Iraqi scientist who directed the destruction of chemical and biological munitions contends that the decision to destroy the hidden materials was made at the end of June 1991. David Kay’s inspection and the ensuing controversy prompted Iraqi concerns about renewed war with the United States, according to Dr. Mahmud Firaj Bilal. Amir Rashid contacted Dr. Bilal and ordered that all hidden chemical and biological munitions be destroyed within 48 hours. When Bilal responded that this was impossible, Rashid directed that Bilal use the resources of the Iraqi Air Force and the surface-to-surface missile force to accomplish the task. Dr. Bilal gathered his colleagues from Al Muthanna State Establishment, went to the locations of the stored munitions, and began the destruction.
* Iraq declared some of the unilateral destruction–missiles and chemical munitions–to UNSCOM in March 1992 but continued to conceal the destruction of the biological weapons program.

Iraq completed the destruction of its pre-1991 stockpile of CW by the end of 1991, with most items destroyed in July of that year. ISG judges that Iraq destroyed almost all prohibited weapons at that time.

* ISG has obtained no evidence that contradicts our assessment that the Iraqis destroyed most of their hidden stockpile, although we recovered a small number of pre-1991 chemical munitions in early to mid 2004.
* These remaining pre-1991 weapons either escaped destruction in 1991 or suffered only partial damage. More may be found in the months and years ahead.

So now we know three things
1. Iraq did not comply in substance (they retained hundreds of munitions) or in process (they did not declare tens of thousands of munitions) with the disarmament protocols specified in the pertinent Security Council resolutions.
2. ISG has no idea what happened to hundreds pre-1991 of CW munitions.
3. Over 500 CW munitions have been found since exploitation began.

Mech_Engineer said:

Personally, I couldn't care less what the results of ANY poll are. They are misleading and manufactured, why should I or anyone else care about what other people "think"? Talk about herd instinct.

My guess is because what other people think affects policy insofar as those people elect the policymakers.

So now we know three things
1. Iraq did not comply in substance (they retained hundreds of munitions) or in process (they did not declare tens of thousands of munitions) with the disarmament protocols specified in the pertinent Security Council resolutions.
2. ISG has no idea what happened to hundreds pre-1991 of CW munitions.
3. Over 500 CW munitions have been found since exploitation began.

Three moot points, the Pentagon has declared the pre 1991 weapons as unusable.

Well, more than anything I am referring to documents from Saddam's regime released by the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office a short while ago, which detailed Iraq's connections with Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and their policies for hiding/disposing of components, chemicals, and documents in laboratories from U.N. inspections. I used to have a link to these documents, but it has since gone dead, perhaps someone else has one

As for the speculation about the origins of the weapons, it comes mainly from Rush Limbaugh (which I tend to agree with, although he himself said it was speculation when trying to decide why these documents had been classified for so long). One way or another, it seems strange to me that the military has been finding weapons in Iraq, yet these discoveries have been played down, even though they would be helpful to Bush's stance, and the military's on-going campaign in Iraq. it makes me wonder is all :uhh:

I'm just throwing ideas around, even if I do realize that many people on this board are visciously liberal.

On the point about the ISG addressing the chemical munitions shells uncovered in Iraq.

So now we know three things
1. Iraq did not comply in substance (they retained hundreds of munitions) or in process (they did not declare tens of thousands of munitions) with the disarmament protocols specified in the pertinent Security Council resolutions.
2. ISG has no idea what happened to hundreds pre-1991 of CW munitions.
3. Over 500 CW munitions have been found since exploitation began.

All true statements that miss the point completely. If the reason for the invasion was to punish Iraq for failing to comply, your statements would be relevant.

As it was, 99.7% of chemical weapons were destroyed in spite of a half-ass, rushed plan for destruction. The remaining weapons found were non-functional and dispersed haphazardly around the country. Even if the reason for invasion was non-compliance, such a punishment would be overkill for a 0.3% error rate.

The reason for the invasion was that Iraq's WMD were portrayed as an imminent threat, which they were not. The only one of your statements that relate to that is the first. If Iraq had been more open about destroying their weapons, there would have been no question about the threat.

With Hussein concealing his destruction activities, the US could rely on reports from UN inspectors (no evidence of WMD found, but unable to rule out existence) or CIA reports (yellowcake uranium, mobile chemical laboratories, centrifuge tubes, etc). Which wound up being more reliable?